


Like Drowning Oceans

by InsidiousIntent



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Happy Ending, Heartache, M/M, POV Alex Manes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 14:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18994420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent/pseuds/InsidiousIntent
Summary: Alex falls in love on a Tuesday.





	Like Drowning Oceans

**Author's Note:**

> My very first Roswell New Mexico fic! A very special thank you to [@dizzzylu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzzylu/pseuds/dizzzylu) and [@nanoochka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanoochka/pseuds/Nanoochka) for holding my hands through the first draft, and to [@estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow) and [@signoraviolettavalery](https://signoraviolettavalery.tumblr.com/) for the beta. Any mistakes discovered are allll mine. 
> 
> This is really for all my discord server pals, who are keeping me sane during this long hiatus <3 I love you all
> 
> There is a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/insidious_intent/playlist/2UnU6EnTCkTJfzeOWAasLH?si=rrklCG9BRzmlc6WTvcBtiA) that goes with this fic. Please have a listen
> 
> Title from Rupi Kaur's poem collection - Milk and Honey

* * *

 

Alex falls in love on a Tuesday.

It’s a boring afternoon and Alex is stuck behind the register at the UFO Emporium, rehashing the colossal blunder of trying to kiss Michael Guerin a couple nights ago. His mind keeps repeating the endless loop of hope then shame of that moment and he can’t stop wondering what will happen when sees Michael again. And then, suddenly, he doesn’t have to wonder.

“Can we talk?” Michael says, and Alex swallows nervously as he follows Michael into the back of the building. The world shrinks down to just the two of them, in a tiny room surrounded by kitschy Styrofoam planets hanging from the ceiling and glow in the dark stars stuck to the walls. Standing in front of Michael, waiting for him to talk, Alex can’t help but remember the last fight with his dad; his calm and confident claim that Alex will never find love, that Alex’s “perversion” would force him to die alone. Alex doesn’t know what he’ll do if Michael does reject him today, letting him down gently because he likes Alex but not in that way, and he can’t stop fearing the conversation about to happen.

Michael’s eyes are several shades of green and brown, the shifting hazel amber colors speaking of a thousand galaxies and infinite cosmos. Not like Jesse Manes’ cold blue eyes, shards of ice that rip through souls. He doesn’t see the kiss coming, and for a second, he is frozen with Michael’s lips on his. Michael’s soft smile makes Alex think of slow love songs. When Michael kisses him again, a Spanish guitar echoes through his heart, low vibrato whispers of _love_ and _devotion_ singing through his senses.

Michael closes his fingers around Alex’s jaw, and Alex can see every freckle on his nose, every individual eyelash. “Let’s run away together,” Michael says, and Alex can feel his heart in his throat, his fears and panic thundering in his blood. He swallows around the lump of hope in his throat and says **_yes_**.

# # # #

Alex thinks it must be a Tuesday.

Chunks of cement fall around him even as the gunfire gets farther away, and he’s running hard and fast and his sides are starting to hurt. Connors and Williams are right beside him, and Palmer is running on the other side of the building, screaming into comms to find cover and fast.

Alex can’t hear everything she’s saying because the last shelling numbed his right ear, and there’s a stinging pain in his right arm where a bullet grazed it. His blood thunders in his ears, in his temple, the urge to _get out, get out, get out_ taking priority over everything else.

His team has the intel, though, and the humvees are only a fifth of a klick from their location. Connors and WIlliams run Alex out as fast as possible, but the gunfire doesn’t stop. Alex feels the _pop_ _pop_ _pop_ on his skin, under his feet, and makes himself run faster.

Another shell misses the group by an inch, and Connors curses so loud even Alex can hear him. Palmer is barking directions, and Alex thinks there is backup coming their way, but he needs to do something to save his team right this second.

Alex tells the team to bank left and make a break for it even as he turns right. “Palmer, I’m losing comms, but I’ll rendezvous with you at the extraction point,” he screams as he runs, only semi-hearing her voice becoming frantic and begging Alex to “ _stop trying to be a hero, Manes!_ ”.

But Palmer doesn’t understand that Alex is their _Captain_. Alex needs to save his team, no matter what it costs.

He can see the humvees in the distance when suddenly there’s a blinding light and someone shouts, Alex’s vision swims and the world seems to freeze. He thinks he sees Michael hovering over him ( _why is he on the ground? When did Michael get to Iraq?_ ). Alex can’t feel his right side anymore, but he knows he’ll be alright because Michael’s here, and he won’t let anything happen to Alex.

# # # #

It’s 2018, but Roswell is a town stuck in time. Alex can’t shake the fear and paranoia that grips him as soon as he returns. Something shifted the tectonic plates of time here, and the town and its people seem frozen in amber, hurt and loss a decade old swirling around in the air. Even the reality of outranking his father and being a part of a secret government project on literal _aliens_ can’t stop the suffocating deja vu Alex has been experiencing since he got back. His squadron is delighted to see his childhood home, but they don’t push for stories. They know there aren’t many good ones, when having Jesse Manes as a father.

The reunion is on a Tuesday night and it brings its own set of ghosts; Michael Guerin is the one dream he never stopped having. But Michael has changed; his grief and anger is an armor ten years in the making, and Alex can’t seem to break through. Alex tries to resist the pull, taunts and hurts Michael with his words because he can’t hope for love here, not after the distance and the heartbreak and what Michael had to go through because Alex dared to love him.

But Michael’s eyes are still warm and hazel and still remind him of a thousand galaxies. There's a whisper of a song in his heart, the strings of an old Spanish guitar strumming a distant memory which stirs all the things in his soul he's fought to forget. When Michael kisses him, Alex finds himself drowning in rough hands and warm lips, and the hot, pulsing, _bleeding_ love that drags him back in.

A few days later, when Michael touches him again in the privacy of the Airstream, it reminds Alex of the dream he had in Iraq. That day, dreaming of Michael saved his life; Michael's gentle dream touch had pulled Alex from the pain he definitely would have died from, given him something to look at when Death had been trying to lure him away. Now, as Michael crowds him in his tiny bed, gazing at Alex with sheer joy and wonder, it feels religious, ritualistic, like an offering Alex can give to Michael in exchange.

Michael’s curls frame his face like a deity glowing with divine power. Alex wishes Michael were a dream: then Michael would belong to him and immediately wishes he could take back that thought, Alex would never survive such power, the burden would crush him. Rough callused fingers trace his ribs, smooth over his belly, and Alex closes his eyes in supplication and gives himself over to Michael instead, body and soul.

Alex remembers when the doctors at Walter Reed said he was lucky. The IED could have taken his whole right side, but Alex came out with just a leg missing. He had wondered if it was luckier to survive an IED or to be surrounded by Michael’s warmth, hearing his heartbeat under Alex, beating just for him.

# # # #

It goes like this. “If I can attach this to a vehicle--” Michael says, and Alex thinks it must be a Tuesday.

“A vehicle?” he echoes. Then as realization dawns: “You’re trying to leave. The planet.”

The possibility of life without Michael is suddenly real. Alex can’t see beyond a future where his life and soul are halved, existing in the same fossilized amber of despair that surrounds Roswell with no hope being complete. Alex runs like he know he shouldn’t, like he has every other time, back when returning to Michael was a possibility pushing him forward.

Alex sits in his car in the dark, silent junkyard later that night and holds the piece of the alien ship, nonsensically thinking if he holds it ransom, Michael will be forced to stay until Alex is ready to let him go (he’ll never be ready to let Michael _go_ ).

The Airstream door opens and Michael walks over slowly to the driver’s side door. Alex wonders if he is giving him a chance to walk away again.

“Alex, what are you doing here?” Michael asks, his voice wary and dejected, like he’s expecting more heartbreak.

In response, Alex gets out of the car, walks up close to Michael, and holds out his backpack.

“I’m here because I thought I had the time to learn to stay with you,” he whispers.

Michael opens the backpack and pulls out the last thing keeping him here with Alex. As he cradles the piece of his ship, the silence of the night seems like a jarring counterpart to Alex’s thundering heartbeat, and he sees the realization in Michael’s eyes even in the dark.

“I know I'm out of time but I- I want to _stay_. I told you I was done walking away, Guerin, and I meant it." Alex says like a last prayer, his last offering to the man who holds all the remaining pieces of Alex’s bruised and beaten heart.

When Michael silently takes Alex’s wrist and leads him inside the Airstream, Alex tries to harden himself to the conversation he knows is about to happen. He knows the final pieces of his heart that somehow survived his father’s assaults will go up in flames tonight when Michael thanks him but tells him he’s leaving. As the door closes behind him, Michael drops the piece and turns to him. Alex wonders if Michael will also feel his heart break.

“Will you ask me to stay?” Michael asks, and Alex is shaking his head already, knowing and remembering he can’t hold this much power over someone, that it will crush him. Michael’s slow and soft smile is like sunrise after a snowstorm, dim and still somehow hopeful. Callused hands hold his face and Michael's eyes stare straight into the parts of Alex's soul he never wanted anyone to see, but Michael sees him. Michael's _always_ seen him.

“Ask me to stay, Alex, because I also need **_you_** to stay.”

Alex falls in love on a Tuesday.

He sees the infinite cosmos in Michael's eyes before they're kissing and Alex's soul sings again, strings of his heart plucked by the fingers of Michael's love as he feels himself falling.

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry about all things malex with me on [Tumblr](https://insidious-intent.tumblr.com/)


End file.
